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Evaluating ACC football a year ago was easier than my college racquetball class. From Florida State’s national championship to Clemson’s Orange Bowl victory, from Jameis Winston’s Heisman to Aaron Donald’s Outland, 2013 was the greatest season in league history. Granted, the conference’s football lineage isn’t exactly House of Windsor-caliber. But when you hoist the trophy, claim another major bowl and sweep the marquee individual awards, kudos are in order. Encores to such are usually problematic, and 2014 was no different, requiring more nuance to assess. But overall, despite some spectacular failures on and off the field, the season was successful,...

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Evaluating ACC football a year ago was easier than my college racquetball class. From Florida State’s national championship to Clemson’s Orange Bowl victory, from Jameis Winston’s Heisman to Aaron Donald’s Outland, 2013 was the greatest season in league...

The Bowl Championship Series, may it RIP, staged a national title game in an exclusive television window for 16 years. But Monday's inaugural College Football Playoff final between Oregon and Ohio State feels oh-so-different.
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Eleven ACC teams are bowling in nine states, in venues from Yankee Stadium to the Rose Bowl. Agendas and stakes vary, not to mention quality of opponents. But there are three overarching storylines:**Unlike its four power-conference colleagues, the ACC...

Welcome to college football's best New Year's Day since 1994. Oh, the sport has eased many a subsequent hangover with indelible Jan. 1 moments, none better than Boise State's overtime conquest of Oklahoma in the 2007 Fiesta Bowl.
You remember, right? The...

The College Football Playoff selection committee got it right Sunday. The teams and seedings. Precisely at 12:45 p.m., as scheduled, complete with the requisite social media outrage.
Two hours later, with a curious about-face on two teams that were...

ACC teams have defeated Southern California, Ohio State and Oklahoma State this football season, and Saturday's schedule is replete with compelling games, including Miami-Nebraska and Clemson-Florida State in prime time.
Leave it to Jameis Winston, at...

Virginia Tech entered the 2005 ACC championship game against Florida State 10-1 and ranked fifth nationally. An Orange Bowl bid and potential matchup with Penn State seemed inevitable.But a loss to the unranked Seminoles dropped the Hokies to 10th in...

Can anyone at Virginia Tech become the next Ed Vereb, Scott Sisson, or Peter Boulware? That will be the prevailing question Saturday when the Hokies open their football season against No. 1 Alabama in the Georgia Dome.
Unless my eyes misread the agate,...

Rare is the football season in which Virginia Tech and Virginia open with top-flight opponents. When the Cavaliers played No. 2 Notre Dame in 1989, the Hokies scheduled Akron. When Tech faced No. 1 Southern California in 2004, Virginia settled for Temple....

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From the moment American...

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Inconvenient travel and lurking Juarez danger aside, the Sun Bowl is a quality destination for Virginia Tech’s football program and part of a historically difficult postseason lineup for the ACC.
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Conventional wisdom, a.k.a. Vegas, says Florida State will defeat Auburn next month for college football’s national championship, and if the Seminole war chant indeed echoes through the Rose Bowl, the upshot will be two-pronged.
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The biggest question for any poll voter this week is, who’s No. 2? Alabama or Oklahoma State?
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Based on my Twitter timeline Tuesday – say that three times fast – there is some confusion, even anger, over the television ratings for last season’s Orange Bowl between Virginia Tech and Stanford.
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You see the lavish facilities, recognize the academic chops and hear rival coaches rave about the potential. And so you wonder.Why is North Carolina football a perennial underachiever? Why haven’t the Tar Heels won an ACC championship in 31 years and...

Virginia Tech lost one football game in 2000 — at No. 3 Miami with Michael Vick sidelined by an ankle injury. The Hokies' reward: a meaningless Gator Bowl against a 16th-ranked Clemson team that dropped its ACC finale to Florida State by 47 points. One...

As an ACC scribe, the most difficult decision on my final Associated Press football ballot was Virginia Tech versus Clemson.
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Only five programs have had longer bowl streaks than Virginia Tech's 20-year run of postseason appearances, but those five programs all climbed to the highest peak in college football during their bowl runs, while Tech is still in search of its first...